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Sharing stories through clothing and textiles

Patterns of Migration is an interdisciplinary research and community project that delves into the sharing of stories through clothing and textiles, focusing on themes of home and belonging. The project, initiated by Dr Carole Hunt and Dr Mary Ikoniadou, originated in Lancashire, Northwest England, a region where migration is closely connected to textile production and deeply rooted in the histories of colonisation, migrant, and working-class labour. More recently, Billy Kiosoglou joined the project after working closely on the design of the online exhibition.

By examining personal clothing items and objects, as well as those held in textile collections, this project investigates how they can serve as a catalyst for recounting stories of movement and migration, intertwined and interwoven with stories of textile heritage, both local and global, social and cultural histories of memory and identity. This project offers a unique window into the past and present experiences of migration and the ways in which textiles and clothing have played a pivotal role in shaping cultural identity and heritage.

Textile objects accompany our everyday movements; they are part of our daily interactions. As material objects, they are invested with symbolic meaning and are often expressions of our individual and collective identities. As craft objects, they speak of both their making and their maker.

The complex functional, symbolic and sensory qualities of textiles, together with their entanglement in our everyday lives, position them as objects from which to open up dialogues of individual and collective knowledge.